New Rule for Tasers: You Can't Carry One Until You've Been Attacked with One - Multiple Times

Yes, small-town police departments have always been havens for sociopaths who take try to compensate for their personal inadequacies by hurting the powerless, but the substitution of tasers for nighsticks seems to be accelerating the violence.

From Digby:

Be very careful when you call the police to come to your home. It might not go the way you think it will:

Janice Wells called the Richland Police Department when she feared a prowler was outside her clapboard house in the rural west Georgia town.

The third-grade teacher had phoned for help. But within minutes of an officer coming to her backdoor, she was screaming in pain and begging not to be shocked again with a Taser. With each scream and cry, the officer threatened her with more shocks.

[...]

The officer in question is Ryan Smith of the Lumpkin Police Department. Smith was called to back up an officer from the Richland Police Department because the sheriff's office in the county, Stewart, had no deputies to send.

Ok, maybe the woman was acting crazy, holding a gun? Threatening the cops?

Not exactly:

SNIP

Smith, who quit eight days after the incident, remains unrepentant.

"I did what I had to do to take control of the situation," Smith told the AJC about his decision to repeatedly discharge his Taser.

Yet his former boss, Lumpkin Police Chief Steven Ogle, was shocked when he saw the video.

"I couldn’t believe it,” Ogle said. “You don’t use it [a Taser] for punitive reasons, to prod someone. It was evident it was an improper use of force. He was an excellent officer other than that incident."

I'll bet. But it hasn't exactly hindered his career:

Smith resigned just as Ogle started the process to fire him, the chief said. Smith now works for the Chattahoochee County Sheriff's office.

"You don't use a taser for punitive reasons, to prod someone."

Someone should put that in a police manual somewhere. I don't think the guys on the street are getting the message.

And yes, there's a video of the final moments.

Read the whole horrific thing.